Separating beauties from beasts

Bath & Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel Collection Review & Pictures

Hallowe’en is just over, but here I am already reviewing the Bath and Body Works Holiday Traditions scent that drove me wild – Bath & Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel!

Although I’m surrounded by co-workers who love Bath & Body Works lotions, I never really got into it…until now. Fiona said, “It just takes that one scent.” Too true! When browsing the store on a whim, I decided to take a whiff of the Vanilla Bean Noel HandiBac. It made my nose smile with the notes of vanilla, caramel, sugar cookie, marshmallow, and cake batter. I wanted to eat it! That’s how delicious it smelled!

Immediately, I knew that I had to get most of the Bath & Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel Collection. Too bad it’s a limited-time fragrance available only around the holidays or I wouldn’t have to act like a crazed maniac and buy so many back-ups of everything.

In this post, I’ll be giving you my initial impression of the Vanilla Bean Noel fragrance in general, and I’ll show you a few pictures of everything I bought. And then in upcoming posts, I’ll be reviewing each product separately in greater depth as I test them out for a longer period of time.

Simply put, Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel is deliciously addictive. I literally can’t get enough of the scent! At work, I’ll open up the bottle of the Vanilla Bean Noel Body Lotion on my desk and just smell it. And I’m randomly using the Fragrance Mist (that I previously reviewed) throughout the day.

To me, it smells like vanilla and caramel got busy. The aroma also reminds me of cake batter, sugar cookies, marshmallows, and cotton candy. If you love sweet gourmand fragrances that are a soft sweet instead of a sharp sweet, you’ll fall in love with this. Every time I smell this, I feel happy. On crappy days, I literally take a whiff of this, and find myself smiling. It’s absolutely my favorite Bath & Body Works fragrance!

The beauty thing about Bath & Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel is that it’s cozy yet surprisingly light. You can literally layer all the products and spray yourself with the mist several times a day without worrying that the scent will be strong or obnoxious. I have a very sensitive nose, and this fragrance doesn’t give me a headache no matter how much I smell it.

What I especially like is that Bath and Body Works puts out so many different beauty and home products in this scent, so you can choose how you want to experience the fragrance. On your lips with the gloss? On your hands with the antibacterial gel? In your room with the candle?

Of course, the fragrance doesn’t have the long-lasting power of an eau de parfum, but with the large assortment of products, you can layer and reapply. And because there are always Bath & Body Works sales going on all the time, you’ll rarely have to pay full price for anything.

But everything good eventually comes to an end. Vanilla Bean Noel is a limited-edition Bath and Body Works Holiday Traditions scent that’s only available leading up to Christmas. This year it hit the shelves in mid-October, and I advise that if you want something from the line, you should get it as soon as possible before it sells out and also before so many people test the products that you’re stuck buying one that was opened. Yuck!

Bath & Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel is a soft, sweet, addictive scent that smells good enough to eat! The caramel really blends with the vanilla beautifully and is the perfect girly scent that’s also comforting and light.

It was love at first sniff for me, and if you check it out in the store, don’t be surprised if you wind up leaving the store with a whole bag full of it! Yummy!